Venjix Virus
Venjix is a computer virus that turned on humanity and conquered the world and the main antagonist of ''Power Rangers RPM''. "Venjix" is a multi-use term in RPM canon. It refers to the virus, the network (of villains) and the sentient entity. Character History Origin Three years ago, Venjix was a self-aware computer virus that had originally been created by Dr. K so as to escape from Alphabet Soup with Gem and Gemma. However, she was caught before she could activate the firewall to keep the virus contained to the facility, allowing Venjix to spread worldwide and began conquering Earth. Within no time, it had control of the world's communication, power, and defense systems and built armies of advanced robotic soldiers, the Grinders. The Grinders laid waste to everything that stood in the path. There was no stopping them and Venjix would declare victory. "Your world is now my world and your time is now over." Only the dome city of Corinth was not under Venjix's control and that is where the remaining humans had fled to. Venjix also had three generals, General Shifter, General Crunch, and Kilobyte. It looked forward to destroying the humans, counting down to the destruction with its' generals. RPM However Venjix had an unintentional hand in bringing the RPM Rangers together. When a returning Ziggy and a wandering Dillon attempt to return to Corinth, it attempts to destroy them through his barricades. Instead, they bombed the barricade with a thermo charger and destroyed part of it. With the car passing through the barricade, the shield and gates of Corinth had gone down. Venjix took advantage of the time gap between the gates being open and closing once more. Venjix revealed his first Attack Bot, a incinerator-theme Attack Bot called the Generation 5 Attack Bot and sent it out. Several more Grinders and the Generation 5 Attack Bot managed to get into the city before the gates closed. The Rangers battled and defeated the robot. The Venjix Drones did a lot of damage to the city, but with the help of the two guys in the car, the Rangers had them retreating. "Begin the download." Generation 5 Attack Bot was reactivated and now giant size. The Rangers formed their High Octane Megazord and battled the robot. The robot was destroyed. Venjix dismissed both their ideas. Venjix revealed its' pet project that it had been working on, possibly in secret. Something vile and looked human. The something was Tenaya 7. After the failure of the "Oil Attack Bot", General Shifter created a lifeless, nameless Generation 13 Attack Bot. This Attack Bot was used to give Venjix a mobile body in order to take on the rangers itself. Although this body was destroyed by Rangers Gold and Silver, Venjix had its' program backed up, so it survived, recreating the same Attack Bot body for its' use. These robots seemed to be sextant and protractor-themed. When Tenaya 7 sends the Textile Bot after the Rangers and made it giant size, Venjix was angry at her for not asking for its' permission to attack the rangers but decided the join the fight in his ship. However after the bot and the ship were destroyed, Venjix survived the attack and stated that the body it was in had failed for the last time. True to word, it ordered Crunch and Shifter to create a new and improved body. They succeeded and when Venjix heard of a gate of Corinth being open, it immediately wanted to attack, despite only 80% of itself having been downloaded into the body. It immediately grew and faced the SkyRev Megazord. Venjix held the upper hand at first, until Doctor K. activated the afterburner and it was forced to shrink after a close ranged blast from the Megazord. After returning to human size, it faced Gem and defeated him. Afterward, Scott fought Venjix and with his Street Saber and Gem's borrowed Cloud Hatchet, he destroyed the new body. However, the robot's head was still intact and was dragged off by General Shifter. With the death of Shifter, Venjix ordered Kilobyte to recycle Shifter's titanium shielded parts to use for a new body. The new body bore a slight resemblance to Shifter as it was recycled from his remains, but it was older looking and had black plating with gold accents. Venjix successfully took over Corinth when Tenaya 15 activated the Hybrids. It met Colonel Truman and imprisoned him with the rest of Corinth. It found a way to the Ranger's base and finally meets Dr. K, its' creator. After discussing how the machines are perfect in every way, Venjix imprisoned Dr. K and Ziggy and downloaded the Ranger data from Dr. K's computer. Downloading this allowed it to personally manipulate the biosphere, deleting two Megazords and even deleting Gem and Gemma. Venjix was confronted one last time by the original three rangers and soon discovered that Dr. K, with the help of Tenaya, hacked into its' system and uploaded a counter virus that deleted its' Grinders. Shortly after, the biofield allowed Gem and Gemma to be revived by Dr. K. They then shot down the control tower, causing it to fall on Venjix, destroying it, as well as its' ultimate body. With Venjix eliminated, all of its' factories were immediately shut down; clearing the air from the polluted wasteland and making the rest of the world habitable once more. Despite this, the exact fate of Venjix was left unclear. As the final episode ends with Dr. K securing the morphers inside a metal briefcase, the background music played is that of the Venjix Palace and Scott's morpher is shown on screen with one red light blinking, indicating that the Venjix virus might come back once again (however, given all the chaos it caused during its' reign, humanity may very well have learned from it all and already developed a vaccine strong enough to destroy it once and for all and prevent further reinfection by that time). Personality Venjix is one of the most ruthless and sadistic villains in the entire Power Rangers ''franchise, and with very good reasons. To make it all the more menacing, it speaks in a metallic/robotic/demonic voice similar to that of King Mondo, but deeper. While it is almost always shown to be calm, stoic, patient, calculating, sophisticated, imperturbable, composed, knowledgeable, and almost polite, it is also emotionless, unfeeling, cold-hearted, power-mad, callous, treacherous, deceptive, manipulative, and dishonest, doing anything in its' power to destroy the RPM Power Rangers and rule the entire world. Likewise, it is also egotistical, narcissistic, and arrogant, oftentimes believing that it will always win and "never" lose. Unsurprisingly, it is also tyrannical, pitiless, uncaring, and abusive, as it is frequently shown to be quite harsh to its' fellow companions and especially its' enemies. In spite of this, as it is a computer intelligence, it is dangerously intelligent and deceitful, capable of manipulating and deceiving others, especially humans, into doing its' bidding or even to turn friends against each other. Its' sadism is especially multiplied by its' complete and utter misanthropy, typical of a self-aware artificial intelligence, as it so hates humans with a passion, so much so that it is gleefully willing to kill as many humans, innocent or not, and is even more willing to commit genocide against the entire organic race, if that is what it so desired. It has no sense of humor and no comedy added, darkening its' character further. This vicious computer knows full well of the difference between good and evil, right and wrong, and so forth, but it willingly embraced evil, and hates humans so much that it makes it irredeemable by nature, so it is one of the few Power Rangers villains to be legitimately qualified as pure evil, rivaling that evil with Master Org, Queen Bansheera, Serrator, Kamdor, Vrak, Octomus the Master, and Lord Drakkon. Bodies, Powers and Abilities - Generation 13 Upgraded Body= An upgraded form of Venjix's second copy of its' Generation 13 body. It has many extra weapons added to it to make Venjix stronger than the RPM team; however the download of Venjix into this body wasn't complete, making it weaker than the original one. The Venjix Virus survived after the destruction of this robot, possibly due to the incomplete download. *'Powers and Abilities' **'Strength': With the new upgrade, Venjix is ten times stronger. **'Extraordinary Leaper': Venjix can leap at an incredible distance. **'Energy Lasers': From the pipes on the chest and both shoulders, it can fire red homing energy lasers, they are strong enough to bring the SkyRev Megazord down in just a few shots. *'Arsenal' **'Sword': Venjix retains his sword for close melee combat. Appearances: RPM Episodes - Final Body= Venjix's final body created by Kilobyte from General Shifter's salvaged parts. It looks similar to Shifter due to the recycling, only with reversed colors. It appears much more menacing due to the bulky physique, darker colors and demonically human-like face. As Shifter was converted into Generation-16 material, it can be assumed that this robot is as well. *'Powers and Abilities' **'Super Strength': With a new body, it is one of the strongest opponents that the RPM Rangers had faced. **'Mega Armor': Venjix has super strong armor that can take multiple hits from the RPM Rangers and not even become scratched. ***'Deflection': Venjix can also reflect any projectile-type attack back at the enemy with the armor. **'Delete Mouth Energy Beam': Venjix's strongest attack, it will scan the enemy to be deleted, and after the download he will charge up bright gold and fire a massive yellow-es pink energy beam from its' mouth, it is strong enough to take down both the PaleoMax Megazord and the Mach Megazord in just one shot and completely dispatch them back into their Zord mode confederation, afterwards, the enemy will be deleted. *'Arsenal' **'Double Sided Baton': Venjix carry a large baton-like weapon for close melee combat. ***'Lighting Beams': Venjix can fire powerful black and red or yellow colored lighting beams from said baton. Appearances: RPM Episodes }} Behind the Scenes Portrayal *Venjix Virus is voiced by Andrew Laing. Notes *Venjix and its' name are likely derived from the word "vengeance". *Along with other villains like Queen Bansheera, Master Org, Lothor, Mesogog, Omni and Octomus the Master, Venjix is one of the strongest and most powerful villains in the entire Power Ranger franchise, due to the fact that it took very few hits by the RPM Rangers in the final battle. *Venjix is quite similar to King Mondo, the main antagonist of Power Rangers Zeo, as both villains are humanoid robots, both villains have robotic voices, both villains' foot solders/monsters are robots, both villains have multiple forms, both villains have two henchmen and both villains have a staff for combat, additionally, both villains have a molded in mustache. **Despite this, they are also dissimilar in many ways. ***King Mondo was created with a humanoid robot body that is colored silver; Mondo and the generals of the Machine Empire are a royal family in contrast to Venjix's military hierarchy. Personality wise, Mondo can be aggressive to his enemies, and may even shout when a plan goes wrong, his family is usually able to reign him in. Mondo is even shown to have a more caring side in regards to his family. Mondo also fights his final battle with the Rangers in his giant form. ***Venjix, on the other hand, first started out as a computer virus, and only resorted to humanoid bodies later. Venjix does not consider anyone in its' faction "family", and has remained stationed on Earth its' entire life. While Venjix maintains a calm exterior, it is shown to be highly aggressive when things don't go as planned, often lashing out at its' advisors for their failures. Lastly, in its' final battle, it fights the Rangers while in his normal size. *The immobile Venjix form is referred to as the Venjix Eye in production. *Venjix is seen wearing "glasses" in certain shots while battling the rangers but most often when it is piloting its' plane. This is due to re-used Sentai footage, wherein its' counterpart sports spectacles. *General Venjix is also the name of the villain from the two-part special team-up Power Rangers Wild Force episode ''Forever Red''. *Venjix is the first and (so far) only Power Rangers villain to successfully take over the world. While some villains from the past had came extremely close, none had truly ruled the Earth for any period of time. *Venjix's final form appears to have a resemblance to General Shifter, this is because this final form's sentai counterpart, Crime Minister Yogoshimacritein, was the father of General Shifter's counterpart, Earth Pollution Minister Baron Yogorex de Stein. *Venjix shares some similarities with Skynet from the Terminator movie franchise, and even more similarities with Ultron from Marvel, including: **Both it and Ultron are one of the most evil villains of their respective franchises. In fact, Venjix is often compared to Ultron, to the point where it is known as the Power Rangers version of Ultron. ***Also, they were able to rule their worlds with an iron fist, when no other villain came close to doing so. ***They are genocidal, self-aware artificial intelligences with a sadistic and ruthless personality and a narcissistic ego. ***They both switch their bodies into something more advanced and lethal, and try to make themselves superior as they do so. ***They are powerful and lethal fighters with their own set of superhuman powers. **He and Skynet are also genocidal, arrogant, self-aware entities with a god complex and a desire to become superior. ***They are also very sadistic in their pursuits of ultimate power and perfection. ***They also have limitless robotic armies. ***Most importantly, they are both computer intelligence who masterminds their schemes behind those they view as pawns to their plans. *Venjix's red eye could be a reference to the Cylons from Battlestar Galactica, or to HAL 9000 from 2001: A Space Odyssey. *Venjix hates having the flaws in his planning pointed out; each time Crunch questioned why he hadn't taken an obvious course of action, Venjix blew up Crunch. *Despite facing the Rangers in battle multiple times, Venjix only grew to giant size once and that is in the episode "Heroes Among Us", instead he either piloted his battle drone, or facing them at normal size. He shares this with such main PR villains as Queen Bansheera, Ransik, Lothor, Mesogog, and Emperor Gruumm (tellingly, all villains exclusive to Power Rangers are difficult to pit against the mostly filmed-in-Japan Zords). *Venjix's first body is recycled in Power Rangers Ninja Steel where it appears as a contestant on Galaxy Warriors named Lavagor, an image of him was later used to depict Lavagor's identical twin brother. * Despite having a male voice, Venjix is a non-gender specific virus. However, Venjix's mobile forms, of android classification, are likewise based on robot males. Appearances * Power Rangers RPM **Episode 1: The Road to Corinth **Episode 2: Fade to Black **Episode 3: Rain **Episode 4: Go for the Green **Episode 5: Handshake **Episode 6: Ranger Green **Episode 7: Ranger Red **Episode 8: Ranger Yellow Part I **Episode 9: Ranger Yellow Part II **Episode 10: Ranger Blue **Episode 11: Doctor K **Episode 12: Blitz **Episode 13: Brother's Keeper **Episode 14: Embodied **Episode 15: Ghosts **Episode 16: In or Out **Episode 17: Prisoners **Episode 18: Belly of the Beast **Episode 19: Three's a Crowd **Episode 20: Heroes Among Us **Episode 21: Not So Simple **Episode 22: The Dome Dolls **Episode 23: And... Action! **Episode 24: Ancient History **Episode 25: Key to the Past **Episode 26: Beyond a Doubt **Episode 27: Control-Alt-Delete **Episode 28: Run Ziggy Run **Episode 29: If Venjix Won **Episode 30: End Game **Episode 31: Danger and Destiny Part I **Episode 32/Finale: Danger and Destiny Part II * Power Rangers Samurai Clash of the Red Rangers - The Movie * Power Rangers Super Ninja Steel **Episode 10: Dimensions in Danger }} See Also (first form) (final form/final antagonist) (leader) *Lavagor - Galaxy Warriors doppelganger in Ninja Steel References Category:PR Villains Category:Main PR Villains Category:RPM Category:Final PR Villains Category:Venjix Computer Network Category:PR-exclusive Villains Category:Monster Enlargers Category:Masterminds Category:Monster Creator